I've been working in the animation industry and I've done a fair amount of freelance illustrating. I'm currently developing my art to license. Anyhow - you shouldn't be reading this nonsense, you should be looking at the illustrations below. You're going to enjoy them. Unless you don't.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

It's hard for me to think of the lil' sand people (tusken raider, if you prefer) without hearing Obi-wan's voice. "The Sand People are easily startled but will return in greater numbers...."

And if you really liked the movie (and seriously, who didn't? Well, up until the last three were released anyway) you'll probably also remember this, "These blast marks are far to accurate for Tusken Raider's ....these were made by Imperial Storm Troopers..."

Alec Guinness had an amazing voice. Along with James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) they turned the possibly corny dialogue into something riveting and believable.

This is my 4th version of the Sandman. In the very beginning I was just going to do a version of Spiderman's nemesis The Sandman:

But as I looked online for reference I found several other characters in the comic book world also with that name. There was one from the golden age of comics:

He wore a gas mask and shot a gun that put people to sleep (much like my story here). When I saw him I just had to do my version of him.

And the character that dominated the search engine when you typed in Sandman was this guy:

Now I don't think his name is The Sandman (so maybe drawing him was a bit of a stretch) but he's in a comic book called The Sandman...I believe his name is Morpheus. But what's say we count him, eh?

Anyhow - As I was putting my Sandman obsession to sleep, I was suddenly struck with the thought of the Sand People from Star Wars. If you took just one of them, you could very well say he was a Sand Man (but most people would probably call him a tusken raider). And, of course, I had to draw him. This should put to rest The Sandman saga. It ends with this 4th and final illustration:

What was nice about this one (which makes it slightly different than any of the other drawings I've done in this series, and not just sandmen, but all of these illustrations) is that I drew it completely on the computer. I did the original sketch on a cintiq, cleaned it up in Illustrator, and then painted it in photoshop.

I loved star wars... and i love your illustration... as a kid after i saw the first three(or rather the last three) episodes... i was scared, i thought what if i die before i saw the rest of the series! i wouldn't know how it ended!! hee hee... alec guiness was my favorite and i absolutely hated it when he died... >:(